Of all the industries that have been revolutionized by the rise of digital technology and the Internet, few have been swept so greatly as the “content” industries, such as producers and providers of music, movies, pay per view (PPV), Video on Demand (VoD), interactive media, and the like. The Internet has made widespread distribution of such content easier than ever.
As a result, new technologies and user habits are changing the traditional business models for providing content to the user. For example, traditionally, content owners, service operators, service providers, or generally, content providers, seek an additional revenue opportunities based on the distribution of the content over the internet, or other network, or even through a portable storage device. Recently, however, many users have indicated a preference for free content over the network. Thus, content providers and the like, have sought to obtain their revenues through other ways. For example, many content providers seek revenues by providing advertisements with the content. This is making advertisement placements within content as one of the fastest growing sources for additional revenues for the content providers.
However, placement of an advertisement within content does not always result in a user viewing the advertisement. Often the user selects to fast forward or otherwise skip the viewing of the advertisements. Moreover, if the user selects to copy the content, they may sometimes copy only the content, while deleting the advertisements. Such user actions translate in lost revenues for the advertisers and therefore, a decreased willingness to place advertisements in the distributed content. Fewer advertisements translate into less revenue for the content providers. Thus, it is with respect to these considerations and others that the present invention has been made.